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Constructive feedback on clip (beginner pilot & editor)

T.O.M.

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These images were made with the DJI Mini 2 in Den Bosch, a city in the Netherlands. The video is intended for general entertainment and for me personal to learn how to edit. The subject in the video is the citadel and the immediate surroundings.

I'd love to hear what appeals to you or where I dropped the ball concerning the images, color grading, and editing in general. I'm just a novice with Davinci Resolve so I'm still struggling with rendering and all the project settings.

If anyone knows a possible cause for the glitch in the tree line at about 12 seconds I'd love to hear it too. Thanks in advance!

Tom

 
TOM, I also use Davinci, but I'm not a video editing expert. I like your video a lot. The colors are very nice. I'm partial to strong, rich colors. As far as the tree, it looked like a flare from the sun rather than a glitch. My wife and her sister took a river cruise through the Netherlands and loved it. Keep up the good work.
 
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For me it starts out way too dark. I would remove dark clips as unacceptable and too difficult to correct. For me I like to see a story which follow a plan or path of what you want to show so there is some mental connection between scenes as they flow along your planned story path. For that a wide angle distant shot of the area might help for those who don't know the area. What is the importance of the Cittadel?
As for editing I use ShotCut. I think getting the right shots for a smooth flowing video story is more important than trying to fine tune color corrections.
The drawbridge brings back memories of my bicycle trip to Netherlands many years ago.
 
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These images were made with the DJI Mini 2 in Den Bosch, a city in the Netherlands. The video is intended for general entertainment and for me personal to learn how to edit. The subject in the video is the citadel and the immediate surroundings.

I'd love to hear what appeals to you or where I dropped the ball concerning the images, color grading, and editing in general. I'm just a novice with Davinci Resolve so I'm still struggling with rendering and all the project settings.

If anyone knows a possible cause for the glitch in the tree line at about 12 seconds I'd love to hear it too. Thanks in advance!

Tom

Well done! The late afternoon setting was the perfect choice for beautiful vibrant colors and the color grading looks fine to me. I thought the drone was flying just a little too fast during the first minute. The transition at about 45 seconds seemed a little rough to me and I would make that smoother.

I haven't used Davinci in a while so I don't remember if the speed can be adjusted during post-production with the free version.

It is a beautiful video made in a beautiful location.
I was sure you were going to hit the top of the ship's mast!

Larry
 
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I agree with FLDave. Think of any video as a story. So, each shot should support the story. The place you shot is all beautiful, especially to those of us who live in the USA, land of junk food restaurants and Convenient Marts. However, I would have focused on the Citadel more, maybe circle it if possible and the shot passing over it looking down was too tight. I thought the color grading was fine and I like some dark shots. Let's me know time-of-day. Music was good too. Keep at it. It's like playing piano, the more you do it, the better you get.
 
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Very nice. I agree - a bit too dark. Think BBC or NAT-GEO.
At 1:38, it feels like a boat ride, then a long fade to black. If you would have climbed up to reveal the sky & canal with no fade or maybe a lap dissolve to the final/next clip THEN the fade-to-black to end I believe it would have been better.
I agree with the 'story' idea in an earlier comment.
I would say start with a high, wide 'moving-in' shot to establish the location then a couple of progressively closer shots to the primary subject, then the surrounds with progressive 'discoveries' then back out to a high wide pull-back from the Citadel and fade to the close.
Imagine its a docu and there's a narrator telling the story with open - details - close.
Draw them in, tell the story and then take them back out.
Take the viewer on the flight they would take themselves - if they had wings.
Again; excellent. Congrats!
 
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Thanks to you all for the comments. Really appreciate it.
I will try to implement all your suggestions in my next project. Main point for improvement is a storyline.
This video indeed lacks a clear storyline, mainly because it are really just a few separate clips that I put together with no underlying plan or subject.
 
Well done! The late afternoon setting was the perfect choice for beautiful vibrant colors and the color grading looks fine to me. I thought the drone was flying just a little too fast during the first minute. The transition at about 45 seconds seemed a little rough to me and I would make that smoother.

I haven't used Davinci in a while so I don't remember if the speed can be adjusted during post-production with the free version.

It is a beautiful video made in a beautiful location.
I was sure you were going to hit the top of the ship's mast!

Larry
I agree with you that I would have looked better at a slower pace. The speed can indeed be adjusted easily in DR including speedramps. Unfortunately these images could not be slowed down as they are in 30 fps. After slowing down it wouldn't be a smooth image anymore.
 
I agree with FLDave. Think of any video as a story. So, each shot should support the story. The place you shot is all beautiful, especially to those of us who live in the USA, land of junk food restaurants and Convenient Marts. However, I would have focused on the Citadel more, maybe circle it if possible and the shot passing over it looking down was too tight. I thought the color grading was fine and I like some dark shots. Let's me know time-of-day. Music was good too. Keep at it. It's like playing piano, the more you do it, the better you get.
It is definitely a different scenery compared to the USA. As as soon there are leaves on the trees again I will shoot more footage of the historic city center with its canals, 700 year old Cathedral and other old buildings and landmarks.
I hope to the visit the USA soon again. This time with my drone. So many beautiful landscapes and enormous buildings in the states.
 
I agree with you that I would have looked better at a slower pace. The speed can indeed be adjusted easily in DR including speedramps. Unfortunately these images could not be slowed down as they are in 30 fps. After slowing down it wouldn't be a smooth image anymore.
You're right in general, but if you change the retime process (under retime and scaling in the inspector) from default (which is nearest) to optical flow, you can often get decent results slowing drone footage down below 30fps. It also helps to change the motion estimation standard better or enhanced if there are artifacts when using optical flow retime. Just a handy tip that can save the situation sometimes.
 
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You're right in general, but if you change the retime process (under retime and scaling in the inspector) from default (which is nearest) to optical flow, you can often get decent results slowing drone footage down below 30fps. It also helps to change the motion estimation standard better or enhanced if there are artifacts when using optical flow retime. Just a handy tip that can save the situation sometimes.
OK I will give that a try. The options in DR dazzle me. So many functions and boxes to check. I will render it again with the settings you mentioned.
 
OK I will give that a try. The options in DR dazzle me. So many functions and boxes to check. I will render it again with the settings you mentioned.
Yeah totally understand the feeling! It took me a couple years to really figure Resolve out. 😅
I'm actually launching a course in a couple weeks where I teach thein is and outs of editing and color grading drone videos in Resolve, and I'll be sending out several free lessons from it to my email list in the week or so leading up to the launch, so if you'd like to get in on that, you can sign up for the email list. https://flyingfilmmakerpro.com/email.html
Also going to be doing a free live launch webinar and Q&A and sharing my "10 Secrets to Cinematic Drone Videos"
 
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From watching the video, here's a couple other tips.
Some of the shots have changes in motion that aren't perfectly smooth. For example in the first shot, you start tilting the camera down, but it doesn't ease into the move very gradually. You can adjust the smoothness of the gimbal, or you can just use the stabilizer in Resolve to smooth out the motion a bit. This is something I do basically all the time. You'll probably want to use Translation or Similarity mode, and then play with the smoothness slider until the transition is smooth, but it doesn't crop into the shot too much.
Another thing I noticed is that the shot where you are looking straight down is moving pretty fast. It's hard to enjoy what's there when it's moving so fast. I'd just try to slow the drone moves down especially when you have the camera pointed straight down.
Some of the clips feel a bit long. I usually like to go for shorter cuts, between 2-10 seconds for a clip, and even cut one long clip up into multiple sections and intersperse them with other clips.
As far as the color grading, I'd use masks to select the darker parts of the shot and brighten them in some of the shots. I also select the sky and darken it as well to even out the exposure. For example in the shot at 46 seconds, I would have used a darker exposure so the sky wasn't blown out, and then used masks, to darken the sky and brighten the ground.
One other thing, I generally try to avoid fancy transitions like at 0:44. They can work well occasionally, but hard cuts usually work better.
Anyway, all in all, good job. Better than my first video edit. haha. Just some ideas of things to pay attention to.
 
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I really appreciate all the feedback. It will really help me improve my skills.
I will try to upgrade this project based on the response from all you guys and drop a link here for a round 2 😃. Not much I can do about the storyline but the brightness and transitions can be fixed.
 
I really appreciate all the feedback. It will really help me improve my skills.
I will try to upgrade this project based on the response from all you guys and drop a link here for a round 2 😃. Not much I can do about the storyline but the brightness and transitions can be fixed.
Sounds good! Looking forward to seeing it.
 
Here is round 2 :)
I tried to make the shots brighter and did a couple of tweaks.
Definitely improved on the brightness end of things!! Could use a bit more contrast on some of the shots though. Much better than the original though. Keep on flying and creating and I can see some super high-quality work coming!
 
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